In this last week of the course, you will be studying the European voyages of exploration that occurred in the late fifteenth and throughout most of the sixteenth centuries. Those voyages brought Europe into direct contact with most of the rest of the world, and forced Europe to reevaluate itself in a worldwide context. In the ensuing centuries after the initial voyages, eventually European technological innovation, coupled with mastery of gunpowder weaponry, allowed Europe to dominate much of the world. This expansion of European dominance waxed and waned over the centuries, reaching its peak probably in the year 1900. The combination of the European voyages of exploration with the Renaissance and the Reformation served to bring an end to the Middle Ages and to begin the modern world. In other words, the Explorations, Renaissance and Reformation serve as the dividing line between the medieval world and the modern world, between a medieval Christian European outlook and a modern secular world view, between European kingdoms and world nations, between a theologically-determined world outlook and a secular, scientific view. Finally, when considering the European voyages of exploration, you should probably consider the actual individual exploits of some of the explorers themselves and the bravery it required for a man to set off on one of the rickety wooden sailing ships of sixteenth century to explore the world with the almost certain knowledge that there was little hope of him surviving wherever he was going or the journey back from wherever he had been. The odds were against him because of the weather, disease, war, chance. In a way, it is surprising that any of the voyages actually succeeded.